Fifty Years too late
by greeny-blue lights
Summary: He had waited. For fifty years. And never told her for barriers so strong had come between them. Tiva oneshot.


**Hello, to all you out there! Decided I had to write some sort of angsty sad oneshot, (one of my longest) after reading so many. This gets mainly angsty towards the end, sort of like a rollercoaster ride. I hope you sincerely enjoy it, maybe even bring out a box of Kleenex.**

**Note: I have used the pronouns 'he' and 'she' to relate respectively to Tony and Ziva. May get a bit confusing, so just remeber, most of the time 'he' means Tony and 'she' means Ziva. If one of these pronouns is _italic_, you know it should be talking about Ziva and Tony.**

**Disclaimer: Own nothing of NCIS. Sadly. Meh.**

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Fifty years too late

**Summary: He had waited. For fifty years. And never told her for barriers so strong had come between them. Tiva**

The first time he saw her, he felt it. Sensed something in those dark brown eyes that he could not describe, could not explain. Her eyes, framed with dark lashes, had glanced at him fleetingly, yet he remembered it.

"Are you having phone sex?" The blunt question was thrown at him, causing him to rethink his answer. He liked that about her, she kept him on his feet, a puzzle always ready to be unsolved.

She was tough, almost to the point of being scary sometimes, the way she would play with the paperclips frightened him immensely, and the way she would sharpen her knife, the hard glint resembling her eyes.

They softened over the years, the eyes, the hard, chocolate brown iris melting. He loved her eyes, her only source of emotion. Her eyes carried so much, expressed so much that her face could not, that her lips could not shape.

It grew. The emotion had been like a bubble, it had been dipped into the solution of detergent and glycerol when he first saw her, and then every day he spent with her was like a millisecond of someone blowing the bubble, pushing it, shaping it, willing it to separate from the stick, and then pop. It grew bigger and bigger, the surface reflecting dizzying colours of light.

The tension amounted, the intangible substance that often existed around them. He couldn't help it, she couldn't help it. The way they almost touched, the close proximity of their bodies and their heavy, slow, measured breath was so comfortable almost to the extent that it could be considered wrong. Yet the tension shattered often, drawing the partners away, stopping them from continuing.

Drinks. Alcohol. Dark Bar. The easiest ways to soften, to lose your inhibitions. After more than a _few_ shots of tequila, she found herself swaying to the music with him, throwing back her head in laughter as he cracked a lame joke which she would usually snicker at, would tease him mercilessly for. Finding the tension that grew between them as always, not shattered by people or by events that occurred.

"We're leaving Abs!" she heard him scream over the heavy metal that was currently playing, and feeling the warm tug on her hands leading her to the car. She did not react, did not twist his hand as usual and cause him to squeal in pain. She followed him, opening the car door and getting in, without thinking twice. It felt right.

"Your place," she found herself slur as he asked her a hazy question. He almost drove like her, and soon, they screeched to halt in front of his place.

Arm around her waist, he almost swung them through the door, fingers fumbling as he tried to find the right key for the right lock. Once the difficult puzzle of the door had been solved, passion engulfed them in a huge wave.

The bubble which had been carefully nurtured had popped, its particles spraying into the air. She woke up the next morning in a slight alcohol induced stupor, trying to get her head around what had happened. The first thing she noticed was that she was definitely not in her room, for the sheets were not a rich red like hers. They were pale white, yet smelled slightly sweaty. She wrinkled her nose in distaste, then stopped and looked to the source of a slight noise. He laid there, his eyes shut tight and lying on his stomach.

She froze, an inaudible sound escaping her tight lips. Her eyes divulged her shock, as she climbed out slowly, threw on discarded clothes, and sneaked out.

When he awoke, all he saw was that one side of his bed had been crumpled slightly, a few strands of rich brown hair delicately attaching itself to the sheets. Yet it was more than enough evidence.

He talked to her the next day after they both had gotten over their shock. She could barely remember it, while he could vividly recollect every single moment. They had crossed over the line, the invisible barrier, had committed the unspeakable offence. They could never go back to the way they were before it.

It was by then a taboo subject, the night she had forgotten. Whenever he began to stray onto that topic, she would backpedal immediately, change course.

She couldn't let him remind her. After a few days, she had begun to remember the night. And she had to admit it, she did not regret it. She wished she could, but she couldn't. Ethically, morally it was wrong, yet emotionally, it was right. Yet ethics ruled as usual, and emotions were just suppressed.

He tried to make it work. Flowers appeared from 'unknown' admirers on her desk sometimes, even a box of delectable Belgium chocolates. She had bit her lip, smiled, a rare occurrence these days, and then removed them. Something was on her mind, and he knew it before anyone else.

She broke the news. She was going back to Israel. It was unexpected, but she had been ordered back immediately by her father. She was calm, stony faced as usual yet her eyes, her chocolate brown eyes, began to harden, began to solidify into that rock which had taken three years to melt.

He hurt. The first day without her sitting opposite him, the first day for a long time. He was used to her presence, to her comforting smile if something was wrong and her dangerous smile if something _he _did to her was wrong. He had taken the paperclip box which she had left behind and kept it next to Gibbs' medals, a praiseworthy position.

She was engaged. To a doctor, who her father thought would be an admirable son-in-law. Aaron's father was Mossad, an old friend of Eli's. He was handsome too, intelligent, witty and kind. He reminded her of Tony, yet in other ways, he didn't.

They held up the act for the whole duration of their engagement. Aaron smiled, she smiled. They held hands. They kissed when necessary. She felt like she was in some deep undercover operation, yet couldn't find the light at the end of the tunnel.

One night when they lay in bed, Aaron sat up and turned to her, his expression unreadable.

"Aaron?" she had asked. Though she loved this man not, she liked him as a friend.

"Ziva, I can't keep doing this. I can't," Aaron shook his head slowly.

"What do you mean, you can't?" she asked, a slight panic in her voice.

"I can't keep pretending to love you. I love someone else, Ziva, and it hurts so much," he blurted, trying to read her veiled expression, "I'm so sorry, everyone's going to kill me when they find out. Literally." The sense of sarcastic humour had kicked in once more.

He had not expected her expression to be one of relief, as she let out a huge huff of air.

"It is okay, Aaron. Be happy with this woman. I'm returning to America." What she wouldn't admit was that she wanted to see another man, a man with sandy brown hair and a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes, who teased her and brought out the best in her.

Aaron's smile reminded her so much of _him_.

When she took the plane back home, she thought long and hard. She had been away for almost two years now. The Director of NCIS had accepted her back, and she hoped the relationship between the team and her would be the same as it had been back then.

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He had continued to hurt for a few months. All he could think about was her. When a new agent was assigned to the team, he gave her a cold shoulder, yet soon, he began to appreciate her for who she was. It felt like the whole Kate-dying-then-_her_-coming-in incident again. He tried to rein it in, but he couldn't. It was like a new bubble was beginning to be formed, that a new piece of glassy tension was often being shattered.

The woman was beautiful and kind, hard like _her_ yet not that hard. Everyone liked her too, Abby had become her best friend in only a matter of months and Gibbs acknowledged her too. McGee was McGee, being McGee. It felt right, holding her in his arms at night, their snores filling the air. _She_ was out of his mind.

Until _she_ returned that morning, pack over her shoulder and walking in like she did all those years. Everything flooded back to him. He felt anguish stealing over his senses, he felt an urge to just run, run away from her, maybe even throw up.

She had come back. She had returned to her family, yet she saw things had changed. She saw that Tony looked like he wanted to run from the sight of her. She saw her desk, her old desk, adorned with slightly feminine objects, as well as a bouquet of roses. The same ones.

The woman was reassigned to another team, which was awkward. _She_ felt bad, causing the movement of someone who had clearly adapted to the team, who had been involved in the team dynamics. Even Gibbs had liked the woman, and she felt like she should return to Israel, for she was not wanted in America. She had been replaced.

They had all stopped her from going back of course, whether from habit or truly from the heart, which she never found out. When she found that _he_ had proposed to the woman, she felt the first flood of anguish in almost a lifetime. The woman had accepted with elation and they were happy, him and his woman, which was not _her_.

She hid it well. He was her best friend before her beloved, and she played the role well. It was another mission, a long undercover one. She was one of the woman's bridesmaids, Abby being the maid-of-honour. When she saw them embrace and place rings over one another's fingers swearing fidelity, she felt herself crack. Her eyes became like stones, her body rigid, the traits and habits she had picked up returning to her days as Mossad.

The woman died five years after the marriage. Shootout. His eyes disclosed his feelings which were juxtaposed to the look of calm he used to mask his pain and _she_ felt for him. She was his best friend, he was her's. They were partners, nothing more, a lie which they both agreed on. She cooked for him, and looked after him, until he was himself again.

For years they worked together as a team, solving cases. Trying to find the murderers, the bad ones. They did not marry, celibacy was a better option. McGee had though, Abby and him made a strange couple. They shared in McGee's happiness, treated little Matthew like their own. She had relished over playing with the child, he had relished in influencing the child to love movies, and cars, and even teach the child the occasional nickname for his father, like Probie, or McFather, or simply, Probie Wan Kenobi. _He _and_ she_ often looked in each other's eyes, the unanswered, oblique question always there, taunting them.

Time passes, and so do friends and those close ones. Ducky left, the first of them. Gibbs, though hard and strong, had his time, and _he_ found himself fitting into Gibbs' shoes easily. _She_ found herself mourning in real sadness over her father figure.

Peace befell them for another period of time. Soon, they were old, retired, creaking and croaking, and Matthew had gotten married to a woman who had very similar tastes to Abby (much to Abby's approval for the woman loved platforms and black pigtails). The cycle continued bringing new life in the form of a child for Matthew, yet Death was ready at hand to take a life or two away in exchange.

_She_ lay in the hospital bed, her face wrinkled, her grey hair spread over her shoulders in an angelic fashion. Her eyes, though thawed, had never returned to their molten state, still frozen like hard chocolate. She felt it, sensed it was her time. Being Mossad, she thought her death would have happened many years ago, but she was eighty-six, and ready to leave without complaint.

_He_ was still relatively healthy, not in the death stage unlike her, who was only a year or two younger. As he hobbled into her hospital room, he gazed at her. So different from the woman he knew fifty years ago, the sultry woman whose eyes were the key to her soul.

She knew she was going to die in a matter of days, a thought she didn't try to stop. She had to say something before it was too late. A secret she had been holding for so many years that it had become entangled in her heart.

"Hey, Ziva," he had said, as he sat down in the patchy armchair next to_ her_ bed, the IV beeping steadily. He laid his walking stick next to his chair, gazing at her with his watery hazel eyes.

"Hey Tony," she let a smile form on her cracked lips.

"We're so old now, aren't we?" he asked her with a small chuckle, "Never thought about this fifty years ago in the prime of our life, holding guns and trying to kill each other with office utensils." The area around her eyes creased as she let a familiar grin be released at the memory.

"Tony," she decided what to say after a few moments, "Thank you for always being there for those years. As a best friend, as a partner, as a…." She stopped. Tony pushed the round glasses up the bridge of his nose, trying to see more clearly. He knew she was ready for it.

"Thirty years ago, do you remember the night….?" he drifted off. She knew what he was talking about. She mumbled an assent, nodding, her bones creaking like an old, unoiled machine.

"Well, it was real," he blurted, "Real to the bone." He paused, waiting for her reaction. Her eyes glittered with tears at the events occurring after the night, the tumultuous ride which scarred them both deeply.

"I love you, Ziva," he whispered as he leant down, his bony hands gripping the metal bar on the bed. He felt his heart lighten from the unloading of the burden he never knew he had. He couldn't say anymore, or any less. She let tears leak out, she was allowed too. All those years of carefully caged up hurt, torment and suffering flowed out in the form of salty tears, rolling down the wrinkles formed over the years.

And when she closed her eyes an hour or so later, he got in beside her and closed his too. He had accomplished finishing his unfinished business. She had, too. They drifted, hands clasping, in peace. Eighty, nearly ninety years of life came to a conclusion.

Tony had waited for fifty years. Fifty years too late. Fifty years to tell Ziva three words. Just three words.

I. Love. You.

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**Hope you liked it! Reviews are very heartily appreciated, like to know what you guys think and what you think I can improve on. **


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